It is a mistake to see Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington as an arc that will transcend the complexities of U.S.-Chinese relations, rather than one which should avow the prudent grounds for U.S policy in Asia on which the U.S. can sensibly and honorably stand. This means a policy that maintains beneficent American interest and presence in the western Pacific and effective concern for Taiwan — exchanging the strategic for the immediate is an exercise in foolishness not statecraft.

The U.S. has a great stake in Taiwan because of its strategic location, which becomes increasingly important as China’s regional ambitions become more open and assertive.

Just recently, Major General and Director of the Navy Information Expert Committee Yin Zhuo stated that

it will take the United States a fairly long period of time to return to Asia. Anti-terrorist wars still constrain U.S. power. … China needs to grasp this strategic opportunity firmly.

This statement is not unique. Indeed the entire knowing world has a very good idea of China’s expansionist aims in the South China Sea. There have been naval provocations with Japan, Indonesia, and the U.S., and Chinese statements that claim “core interests” in extra-territorial waters. In addition, there is unrepentant assistance to North Korea’s nuclear programs, and development of the Chinese military’s anti-ship ballistic missile to threaten American aircraft carriers in the western Pacific. These are but a few signs that Beijing hews to a very different role than the peaceful one it publicly claims.

Who can doubt the centrality of Taiwan on the chessboard into which Chinese diplomatic and military ambition is transforming the western Pacific? To deny China’s aims in the face of mounting evidence is to assume that our own vision of a bilateral relationship based exclusively on economic competition is shared by China. This is a fantasy. China sees both economic and strategic competition as the basis of relations with the United States. Taiwan, Australia, and Japan’s growing concern for their own security all concede the shifting strategic climate in Asia, and their recent military — especially naval — acquisitions prove it.

Taiwan is a democracy increasingly threatened by China’s enormous military buildup on the opposite end of the Taiwan Strait. The 2010 U.S. Department of Defense report “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” confirms that China’s military buildup across the Taiwan Strait is unmistakable and formidable. As the report notes, “China continues to deploy many of its most advanced systems to the military regions opposite Taiwan.”

Equally clear is Taiwan’s position as an enormous trading partner and financial stake holder in U.S. business and currency. This should remind every U.S. administration of America’s deep ties to Taiwan. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act is also a powerful demonstration of the same. It requires us to maintain the capacity “to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan.”

18 Comments, 9 Threads

1.
fsilber

When we first supported Taiwan against China, it was not because Taiwan was a democracy — it wasn’t. It was authoritarian soft-fascist, like Franco’s Spain. We supported them to resist the communist plan for world conquest.

I don’t know whether Taiwan is more democratic than it was back then, but China is no longer idealogically communist. They, too, are merely authoritarian, and communism is no longer a viable movement for world conquest.

So as long as China agrees to respect the Taiwanese people’s private property, what is our interest?

With all this concern about China’s military build up, the one thing that really bothers me is what happens if there is a military coup in China. It seems that when Secretary Gates was in China recently, the civilian leadership did not know about the military’s unveiling of its new, advanced, jet fighter. This jet is a big, big, deal in China and for the civilian leadership not to know anything about it is very troubling.

That’s the problem with communist countries. They are no better than dictatorships or oligarchies, so a military coup in a place like China is a very real possibility. If that happens, EVERYBODY, including our allies in the Pacific, had better beef up their military capabilities, and fast.

The resource rich country of Australia currently supplies China with a large amount of their needed coal, coke (for steel) bauxite and many many other raw materials. Australia also has timber, beef, wool, oil and much more, not to mention the one thing China REALLY needs… open space!

Australia is not a member of the Nuclear club, has a small military and best of all, relies of the US for defence needs. The US is currently over-extended with all the forces losing personnel due to high OP tempo’s and low down-time.

Interesting point – China is building a BLUE WATER Navy, which they wouldn’t need to attack Japan, Tiawan etc, but WOULD need to attack Australia.

Australia is beginning to wake up to that fact. It is also aware that with the current administration in the White House Australia can no longer rely on the US for support. The only good thing is China would have to get by Japan first and they realize the danger of China. Japan would probably be Australia’s first and most important ally.

I agree with #2 that China could become unstable. The Chinese government is opaque, we don’t really know what is going on. These guys are keeping secrets from each other, especially the military branch, which is quite aggressive. They publish articles and books about invading Taiwan and detroying US forces. Compounding this instability is the Chinese 1 child policy which has led to “gendercide” and a massive gender gap. They have some 200 million extra boys who are now growing up – where are they going to find women? My guess is in neighboring countries.

The irony here is that for 60 years China has been accusing the US of trying to form an alliance of countries around China to destroy it. This was just propaganda, as many of these countries (even SK and Japan) were very ambivalent about US bases and troops on theri soil. And now that China is building up aggressive mil capacity these countries are turning to the US, and even SK and Japan (traditional enemies) agreed to work together. The situation is of China’s own making.

One thing the US could do is make more F22s to counter the J20, and sell them to Japan and Australia to deter Chinese aggression. And save 50,000 US jobs too.

The F22 Raptor was cancelled by the Obama administration in favor of the F35 which was supposed to be cheaper. Now the price of the F35 has risen to that of the F22 and Obama is considering canceling that too. China has laid the basic structures to build five aircraft carriers, it is definitely developing a deep water navy.

China’s not going to invade anyone, least of all Australia fer cryin’ out loud. China’s not like Wells’ Martians who’ll just role over the Phillipines and Indonesia and China has absolutely no capability to protect its sea lanes for overseas adventurism. Japan arguably had a better submarine threat during WW II than China does now and couldn’t interdict a sailboat.

China has zero capacity to fight a war the Japanese fought which revealed how Japanese occupied armies could in fact have been largely isolated rather than attacked directly as we did. You think China’s gonna go after Australia with one decrepit aircraft carrier the Russians are probably still chuckling about selling to them? Even with this new so-called “carrier killer” missile the Chinese MAY have, when it comes to combined arms, forget about it; they negotiated just to get Hong Kong back.

There is no rhetoric coming from China about taking over Myanmar or Vietnam and they are not so stupid that they don’t see much of the world would ally itself against any Chinese militarism that ventured to sea. This isn’t the old days where Burma and Indonesia were relatively primitive and the arms in the hands of a few colonlialist’s. Those nations are packed with small arms and the will to use them as well as a nationalism that is far in advance of the nationalism that earned them indepedence. Forget about China and about turning nobody into somebody and then an enemy just because they want to do the same things America does. Let’s try making friends for a change and stop acting like the moronic Soviets did during the Cold War.

Just ignore James, he lives in his own little world. He may be politically autistic.

For those of you who live in the real world, keep an eye on China.

BTW, China doesn’t make it known, but she has a Muslim problem of her own. This could be (oddly enough) a good thing. If she has to deal with Uighur separatists bent on establishing Islamic law and religion, then she can’t over extend herself without leaving something uncovered.

Since you find it easier to talk like a child than to challenge what I wrote I don’t see it as much of a rebuttal.

China could want Australia all it wants to and you can believe it all you want but without an understanding of how vulnerable China’s navy would be in such a venture it’s just pie in the sky.

Strategy, tactics, operations, combined arms, supply, interdiction and anti-interdiction capabilities, submarine and anti-submarine warfare, shipping tonnage, air support, air bases exactly like the Japanese had to have even WITH carriers and much more are considerations that would decide any adventurism at sea by China.

In other words: ain’t gonna happen. China physically is incapable of such a feat. Japan was at war for 8 years before they took on America, had true cutting edge combined arms tactics and still failed even with the element of surprise. China has the population to reverse a part of that but only that.

With today’s satellites, China couldn’t do anything without us being aware of it immediately. Even a movie about a Chinese move would test the limits of a near future science fiction flick. India is far different from 1962 and they and Japan are not going to sit around doing nothing.

I live in the real world where America has half the aircraft carriers in it and China’s navy has no AIR SUPPORT beyond its coast and can achieve exactly nothing beyond that air support even if its air force was a good one which has yet to be proven as nobody is putting any money down on China’s Top Gun Academy. Any war off the mainland will be a sea war. Even Indonesia and the Phillipines could probably knock off China’s navy with their own land based aircraft and no Chinese air support to interfere. You’re delusional.

James, why do you think China would be alone in such a conflict? There are other parties who would love to see China victorious in ALL of these conflicts.

Who is China’s biggest supplier and who provides high tech help and even pilots for its planes ?

RUSSIA.

The Russians have their own goals against us – starting with getting back all their lost Republics and in seeking redress for losing the Cold War. They have territorial issues with Japan and energy supplies are involved in this. Being a the primary military builder for the Chinese Pacific Superpower as it conquers its neighbors would feed right in to rebuilding their economy and regional power (not to mention redirecting desiring eyes the Chinese may have towards Siberia and the riches there).

Iran would love to see us removed from the Middle East. Having to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq would pretty much follow if our supply lines got cut during a China conflict not to mention having a chance to go at Israel both thru their proxies and directly.

Even our Bolivaran friends like Chavez would see this is an opportunity to expand their America-hating Marxist Empire south of us – maybe even to taking Mexico.

There is a whole world of Socialists and Islamists out there that would cheer on and ally themselves with ANY sort of conflict that would draw the US into a war with China.

Do NOT assume that the Chinese have numerically effective military that couldn’t cause a lot of damage and they would NOT be alone in this.

Since there is no marxist empire south of us I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about. What do you think Brazil would be doing during all of this – taking a nap? The Brazilian economy is larger than the rest of South America combined. The idea that Venezuela would try and conquer anyone is ludicrous.

Russia and China allies? Kinda like Hitler/Stalin? Russia went broke during their last attempt at empire. Russia provided pilots for Egypt – fat lot of good that did them.

Some of this is rising to “truther” status. I suggest some yoga. It’ll have a calming influence. Russia and China are warring with no one and it is the U.S. with the giant military and using it. You have your fears backwards.

Its interesting to watch China. Its GDP just passed Japan’s and has now moved to the number 2 spot in the world. With its current growth rate it will surpass us in ten years. Its focus has gone from defense to offense militarily with its new stealth fighter and carrier busting missiles. The keels have been laid for five aircraft carriers. Even if China doesn’t use this new abilities against us, they will project power in the Pacific. Is our answer to rearm Japan? Or, is our answer to meet each new challenge will new armaments and tactics. If I were Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, or South Korea, I would be very concerned.

china is a big nation it slept too long now she is already wake up japan is a small country but rob everything from china when she slept if japan dont want to face reality of the rising china one day japan will understand